The 4 Essential Traits You Need to Build Your Own Business

Many people aspire to become entrepreneurs, but it’s not something that just anyone can do. To actually succeed you need more than a desire to make money or be your own boss. You need certain qualities.

Soon after I started my own business, Fortune Cookie Advertising, I began to identify crucial qualities that were fundamental if I wanted to succeed. While I had all of these four traits to some degree at the outset, I also had to consciously develop them over time.

1. A Clear Vision

This is the foundation of your business. Your vision may be based on a product, a service, or simply the desire to solve a problem for your customers. This is the “why” of your endeavor, and it must be relevant to the people you will be serving.

That’s why it’s not enough to want to be independent—your customers or clients don’t care about this. They care about your vision, which could be anything from wanting to build the most advanced computer operating system to wanting to find a fast way to deliver flowers around the globe.

Your vision may change, expand, or narrow over time, but you need to have one when you start. In my business, I started with the vision of being able to provide advertisers with an innovative way to get their message out.

2. The Ability to (Quickly) Pitch Your Business

If your business is straightforward, like selling books or changing the oil in people’s cars, it’s easy to explain. But some products and services are more technical or abstract. No matter what kind of business you decide to run, however, you should be able to describe it to prospective customers, investors, or even friends and family members in a few short sentences.

If this isn’t your strong suit, you might want to study the art of the pitch in terms of the movies. A screenwriter must be able to sell his or her idea to a busy and skeptical producer in a few minutes. Any new business owner should have the same ability. It shows that you not only know your business well, but can convince others of its value in language they can easily understand.

3. Persistence

Many of the most successful entrepreneurs in history failed at their first (and in some cases second, third, or more) businesses. Notable examples include Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, Richard Branson of Virgin Atlantic, and even Bill Gates.

But perhaps the most famous example in history is Thomas Edison and his many attempts to design the light bulb. The quote “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” is often attributed to him. Hopefully, you won’t have to be quite as persistent as Edison, but the principle is the same. Many new ventures fail or experience setbacks, but you cannot let this stop you from trying over and over again until you devise the formula that works—you won’t get paid if you don’t.

At one point in our business, a computer failure resulted in the loss of hundreds of names of contacts, including customers and prospects. This data, of course, should have been backed up, but I had not gotten around to doing this. So my team and I had to manually rebuild the entire list. It was a painstaking process, but we recovered everything, and I learned a valuable lesson: Always back up!

4. Focus

This last quality is one that entrepreneurs need in abundant supply. You need to be able to see a project from inception to completion while overcoming distractions. You must be able to prioritize, set your own schedule, and meet your own deadlines. For people accustomed to having their tasks assigned to them by employers, parents, drill sergeants, or professors, this is a big change.

When I first started my business, it took me a few months to understand this. At first, I made elaborate schedules and to-do lists to keep myself on track. I still do that to some extent, but now it’s more internalized as I’ve gotten comfortable in the role of entrepreneur.

Almost everyone like the idea of being independent—in theory. The freedom to be one’s own boss is one of the most desirable things about starting a business. But only you can decide if you are focused enough to do it.

Shawn Porat is the CEO of Fortune Cookie Advertising, a media placement company selling advertising space within fortune cookies at Chinese restaurants throughout the United States.

Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.